What is Euro NCAP's highest car safety rating?

Euro NCAP's highest car safety rating is five stars.

Euro NCAP, the European New Car Assessment Programme, expresses its overall results on a zero-to-five-star scale. Five stars represent the best rating and indicate excellent crash protection together with strong equipment for avoiding or mitigating crashes; zero stars is the bottom of the scale.

The overall result is built from several assessment areas rather than a single crash score. These include adult-occupant protection, child-occupant protection, vulnerable-road-user protection and safety-assistance systems. A vehicle can therefore lose stars because it lacks effective driver-assistance technology even if its passenger-compartment performance is strong.

The rating is commonly confused with a simple count of airbags or a universal lifetime grade. Euro NCAP protocols change over time, so a five-star result from one testing period is not always directly comparable with an older result. Buyers should check the test date and the specific vehicle variant.